


Cypher

by Gairid



Category: Vampire Chronicles - All Media Types, Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Christmas, M/M, New Orleans, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-11
Updated: 2010-02-11
Packaged: 2017-10-07 04:18:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gairid/pseuds/Gairid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis ruminates on how things have changed since his fairly recent reunion with Lestat--and how they have stayed the same. Set a year after Lestat's ill-fated concert (c. 1986).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cypher

# 

Cypher

 

It was the Christmas season, a little over a year since Lestat had decided to show himself to the world, a little over a year since the demise of many of our kind and the destruction of Akasha--a little over a year since I had found him again, brash and confident and so very much the Lestat that I had missed so much.

A little over a year since we came together again at last, delirious in the California night before everything had changed.

When we had all been together on Night Island that confidence had all but disappeared, replaced by a brooding melancholy that was more in keeping with the many descriptions given of my own personality than his--but eventually, when he'd followed me back to New Orleans, his indomitable spirit reasserted itself and once again I found myself swept along in the strong current of his daunting and mercurial personality.

We were in New Orleans, Lestat and I, staying in a smallish flat on Chartres only blocks from the Rue Royale townhouse which was currently undergoing major renovations. I'd been ambivalent about the restoration at first, but as work progressed I found myself looking forward to those evenings when Lestat would insist I come along with him to examine the progress. After a while I came to see the restoration as a mirror of sorts, for we ourselves were restoring the frayed bonds of what was, at the very least, a complex and convoluted relationship. It was by no means perfect, this arrangement, for as inward as I might like us both to look, Lestat was determined to keep a wall up about himself and in that way very little had changed.

There were squalls occasionally building to tempests; Lestat has ever been an impatient creature and my tendency toward reclusiveness and quiet, which had become a habit from long years of solitude, would often bring him to a point of aggrieved irritation wherein he would badger and cajole and wheedle until he got his way. We would sally forth into the realm of mortals there to indulge in our own particular brand of debauchery even as they indulged in theirs. I should rephrase that, I suppose--Lestat would indulge and poke and prod at me to join in when he took his little drinks from those mortals that he danced with or feigned sexual interest in.

"_Alors_!" he would cry, vexed. "What is the difference, Louis? A dozen or so small sips from them or one long draught? They are none the wiser and then---_voila_! You needn't be so twisted up inside about causing death every night."

Any protest from me only brought him around again to another bone of contention; I had yet to share his powerful blood. This was one of the things that caused the squalls to escalate into major storms and so, rather than giving him yet another fruitless rendition of my reasons for refusing his offer, I would go along with him and we would mingle with the tourists on Bourbon Street or the locals on Magazine.

It was a temptation. I longed to drink from him, longed for that intimacy that is the culmination of physical desire for us. We can and did connect in all manner of ways for how could I look at him but not want to touch him, hold him and offer myself in all ways to him? My reticence in sharing his blood was not, as he believed with affronted suspicion, because I did not wish to share this with him or that I would somehow use it as a form of manipulation.

I had not known Lestat as a mortal man and in our early years together he shared only the barest amount of himself with me, handing out tantalzing nuggets of his past, his deepest feelings, himself, in sparing doses as he saw fit, the better to keep me close while still holding me at arm's length. My desperation then had been as much about this miserly witholding as it had been about killing mortals or the nonsense about his watching me as I stalked them.

My reason for refusing his offer had more to do with knowing him at this stage--knowing him when our differences were almost as great as they had been when I was still mortal and he had come to me, a dark angel in the night. If I ventured this explanation I had no doubt he would grow immediately defensive and sarcastic rather than taking my words as truth. I contemplated these things often, reflecting on the bittersweet logistics of our entanglement and wondering with a sort of fevered hope that if I finally let down my guard one more time and told him, things would actually change.

I'd been thinking about this as I let myself into the second floor flat we occupied. The room was dark and as there was no sign of Lestat, I eschewed the lights and instead crossed the space and stepped out onto the balcony. The floor had a decided forward tilt toward the railing and so the chairs we had there were pushed up close to the wall. There were a few plants sharing the balcony with the chairs--a Meyer lemon, crowded with fragrant, waxy blossoms, ferns hanging over the railing and a large, bold ginger plant by the door that threatened to burst forth from the restraints of the clay pot it was growing in. This part of the Quarter is quiet for the most part and the neighbors, though friendly enough, tended to keep to themselves.

Sitting there in the dark it could have been any year, any decade that I'd spent alone. The pervasive smell of fried hydrocarbons from the automobiles gave the century away, but it was easy to ignore, masked as it was by the strong jasmine-like fragrance of the lemon blossoms and the rhythmic echo of the mules' hooves as they trotted by, pulling their jaunty carriages on the cross street a few houses away. Across the street the balcony rail was outlined with strings of tiny multicolored lights and the curtains had been opened to reveal a Christmas tree, also trembling with color and light.

Had we ever celebrated Christmas, Lestat and me? Not in this modern way, no. We had never put up a tree or strewn lights around the windows and railings. In the past there were years we would go to the Cathedral on Christmas Eve to listen to the choir and bask in the heat emanating from the crowd of mortals and in the later years we would lavish Claudia with gifts, ignoring the chill in her eyes that spoke eloquently of her disdain for the front that we both put up for reasons of our own. Hardly what I would call a celebration.

How absurd. Here I was working myself into a fit of the same sort of melancholy I've only just derided several paragraphs back. Time to get up--time to feed perhaps, so as to avoid one of the smaller nagging arguments that would inevitably be followed by a baffling, accusatory anger.

It was a testament to how lost in reverie I'd been when I found myself startled by the sound of Lestat's step just below the balcony accompanied by several mortals. What the devil could he be up to this time? I was in no mood for one of his 'Let's play with the mortals!" scenarios.

Voices in the steep stairwell leading to the flat, Lestat's distinctive laughter a clarion to my bemused ears. I hastily closed the French doors and stood to one side as the cacophony grew. I heard his key in the lock and impulsively, I vaulted over the railing and dropped lightly to the pavement below. I stood across the street for the moment and watched as the the flat was suddenly flooded with light; shadows moved by the windows.

Had he realized my presence? Undoubtedly. For my part, I was relieved that he hadn't decided to open the doors onto the balcony and demand my presence in the flat. I moved quickly down the street and turned to go away from the river at the corner, thinking to give Lestat a little time to attend to whatever it was that he had planned.

Royal Street was the next block over and I turned in order to walk past the townhouse. I had not been there for nearly a week and with Lestat's constant harrying, I knew that there had to have been some progress made. Upon reaching the familiar facade, however, I chose not to go inside, but rather to visit the courtyard.

Progress had been made there; it no longer looked overgrown and abandoned. The plantings were new and the fresh mulch lent a fermented fragrance to the space; it was a place transformed and I found the changes pleasing--far less ostentatious than it had been so many years ago. It would not take long to reach the secretive, shadowy stage, considering the density of the plantings. I looked up at the gallery that wrapped around the back of the building and thought to myself that it had not changed very much aside from the fresh paint. In my mind's eye, I could see Lestat leaning on the rail and beckoning me to come inside and beside him, Claudia's small form exquisitely dressed in an immaculate dress the color of daffodils and a crisp, white pinafore. I blinked and wondered again at myself, lost in the past, but somehow at this moment not so weighed down by it.

I left then, springing to the top of the brick wall at the back of the courtyard and cutting through the rabbit's warren of alleys and passages between Royal and Bourbon. Several blocks down I came to the press of mortals walking up and down the cordoned street and found myself caught up in the raucous gaiety. Pretty young men dancing in the street where they'd spilled out from the gay bars on the corner of St. Ann reached for me, cajoling and lustful; tourists giving these same young men wide berth or watching furtively from a distance.

Further down, huckstering cries to come in and see live sex acts, to buy cold beer or sweet rum drinks, zydeco blaring from shops selling cheap trinkets and t-shirts--tawdry and dazzling and suddenly I felt an unreasoned longing for Lestat and I wished him here beside me. I wanted to watch him interacting with the tourists and the hucksters and the succulent young women wearing outlandish costumes reminiscent of tattered bridal gowns, tottering on the uneven pavements in heeled boots, their hair spiked out in clouds around their pretty, luridly painted faces. I wished suddenly that I could indeed take the little drink, _le petit boisson_, just to taste each fantastic flower that passed by me. I knew that if I tried, my first taste would be that unfortunate mortal's last minute and so I forebore for the moment and stopped the line of thinking because already the sinister hunger had awakened in me.

Another bar, this one with a creditable ensemble playing a bluesy version of _The Little Drummer Boy_. When the song was over they segued improbably into _Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams_ and again I felt the longing for Lestat--if he were here he would take me in his arms and coax me into dancing with him among the mortals, hips pressed tight to mine as he whispered blessed obscenities into my ear. The trumpet player was good, better than a place like this should have been able to afford-- a young man with dark skin and beautiful brown eyes, his fingers supple on the valves. So many musicians--so much music. I'd known Louis Armstrong when he was a young man--I'd spoken to him often enough that he became easy around me, and another Louis, Louis Prima, who had recorded this very song and sang the lyrics in his own languid way. Again Lestat came to mind. He should have been there with me--how he would have loved to have been there upon the birth of that wonderful music, the music of New Orleans and the Delta.

I stayed there a while; the band was good and the crowd not quite as pressing as it was in some of the other bars. I paid for drinks that I did not consume and bought rounds for people around me and I was wished a Merry Christmas over and over again by inebriated mortals.

The band went on a break and as I moved to leave the place the hair on the back of my neck tried to raise and in the next second Lestat's hand was on my shoulder and his mouth was at my ear. "I had the devil's own time finding you, Louis. Why on earth did you run off just as I came home?"

He expected reticence, perhaps even a shrugging off of his hand but I surprised him by turning and putting my arms around his neck. "I wasn't sure if I was invited to whatever party you'd cooked up," I said, running my fingers through his hair. It was as soft as a child's, as pale as the moon. His delighted smile made my heart lift.

"Party?" he said. "Nothing of the sort. Actually, it was something I'd hope to surprise you with; I was peeved when I realized you were on the balcony--but then I realized that you would react predictably and leave the scene." His smile removed any sting that his words might have held.

The band was back already, moving into their positions for their next set. The band started slow, a ripple of piano and a bluesy riff leading into Mac Rebennack's beautiful _A World I Never Made_. We moved together naturally with the music and the feel of his arms around me, the brush of his hair on my cheek gave me an overwhelming feeling of transcendence. How could I ever think to be away from him? How?

>   
>  The late show is over  
>  And the city is fast asleep  
>  And I'm lost in a world  
>  That's just too cold and deep  
> 

Swaying together, unmindful of our surroundings. His hands on my hips were gentle and the soft sound that I heard in his throat nearly broke my heart. I laid my head down on his shoulder and we turned with the music.

>   
>  I've turned so many ways  
>  I'm spinning like a top  
>  I wish that I could get off  
>  Or get this world to stop  
> 

"Will you come back home with me, Louis?" he said into my ear. "I have something I want to show you."

I chuckled into his neck. "Oh, yes? Have I not seen everything you might wish to show me?"

His own laughter was muffled. "Not this time." he said. "It's not me, you see."

>   
>  I'm a stranger and afraid  
>  I'm a stranger and afraid  
>  I'm a stranger and afraid  
>  In a world I never made  
> 

"A shame. I never tire of you, my love. But I am curious now."

"I'm glad to hear it. I'm also glad to find that you are willing to dance with me in so public a locale."

I said nothing further, but allowed him to move me about the floor to the sweet, sad music and I knew that feeling of being enveloped was a feeling I would carry with me forever.

We left soon after the song ended, walking wordlessly together from the crowds on Bourbon towards the river and then parallel to it until we reached our flat on Chartres. We went up the stairs and when we reach the door Lestat spoke.

"You must close your eyes now, Louis, until I tell you to look."

I obeyed him dutifully. I had some idea of what I might see because I could smell the fresh balsam fragrance in the close, humid air of the stairwell. He turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open, propelling me forward with his hand at the small of my back. "One more moment, Beautiful." he said. I heard the snick of the light switch.

"Open your eyes."

I did. In the middle of the small room was an incongruously larger fir tree. The room had a high ceiling which accommodated the tree quite well; otherwise, the monstrous thing took up a good deal of what space there was. The tree was aglow with trembling light--the shining glass ornaments caught that light and gleamed with it. It was altogether lovely and it quite took my breath away.

"Do you like it?" Lestat demanded.

I turned to look at him and the tree and the beautiful ornaments and lights faded back, dimmed by his own beauty and the light in his eyes.

"Lestat." I said, gesturing inadequately. "It's lovely. Truly...you ...ah."

I turned to look at it again and burst into sudden laughter. He came to stand beside me and regarded me with a quizzical look.

"It's a very large tree, Lestat." I said, still laughing. I was delighted with his gift, brought here even as I'd been thinking about just such a thing. "It takes up most of the room."

"It's a little out of scale, I suppose. Are you going to tell me now that it's foolish for deadly killers like us to celebrate Christmas?" He was smiling still but there was an edge to his tone and a stiffness to the set of his shoulders that deflated me somewhat.

"Not at all. In fact, I was thinking about this very thing when you came home with it, though I didn't know your plan then."

"Oh?" he said in tones of disbelief.

"Would I say it if it were not true?" I took a step closer to him and ran my hand down the sleeve of his jacket. "Christmas trees came into vogue when we were apart," I said simply. "I wish you would not be so suspicious of everything I say."

Several emotions chased one another across his face, visible to me only because I was watching him closely. For a moment I thought he would give way to anger but then his posture changed entirely and he drew me close.

"You are a cypher, Louis." he said next to my ear. "I never know what will please you or what will offend you."

"Yes you do." I ran my hands up his back and pressed my brow to his. "It's not really all that complicated, you know."

"Cypher." He repeated the word with his lips just barely brushing mine. "Mystery. What's the answer? What's the key?"

"You're the key." I said moving back slightly so I could look into his face. "Don't you know that?"

He made no answer at first and I read hesitation in his eyes, reticence in his face and in my heart there was sorrow at his restraint. He released me and went to sit on the sofa. I joined him and we sat in silence, looking at the tree.

"I may be holding the key, Louis, but I'm not sure how everything fits." he said at last. " Maybe we can solve it together."

"Might take a while"

"Doubtless." he said, and the smile touched his eyes this time. "Suspicious minds and all that. You don't really think that tree is too big, do you?"

I took his hand and looked up at the fir. "No. I think it's perfect." I said with complete sincerity.

"_Joyeux Noël, mon Louis_." he said softly.

"_Tu es le clef, Lestat_. I murmured.

The tree glimmered in the darkened room.

FIN

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not claim ownership of Ms. Rice's characters or her works. I write these stories for love of them; no profit is reaped.
> 
> Christmas fic written for the vc_media challenge.The story takes place in 1986, a year after Lestat's concert and the following debacle. Possibly playing a little with canon timeline; this is before TotBT, but otherwise (for a change) keeping to canon.
> 
> If you would like to hear the song Lestat and Louis dance to, here's a link to _ A World I Never Made_ by Dr. John (Mac Rebennack)
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0Eg1PZWArM


End file.
